Relationship And Intercession

PRAYER IS RELATIONSHIP

Is prayer the LAST resort of the weak or the FIRSTresort of the strong?

Relationship is really the key component. God desires relationship. He has initiated this idea and has responded by including his Spirit, mingled together with ours. We cannot enter this relationship with our minds. God is Spirit and when we try to come to him with our minds alone, our minds will always fight us. Our spirit must be in line with his and we know that only happens after we come to know Jesus. See; John 14:15-21 & 26, 16:8-11,13-15.

Renewing Process

What do I mean by, “our minds will fight us?” This simply means that the mind is too finite to grasp the things of God. Because God is eternal and lives and moves and has his being in the spirit realm as well as the natural realm, how could we ever comprehend him? The only solution was for God to help us and he has by way of Holy Spirit coming into our lives and engaging with our human spirit. Suddenly our spirit gets a heavenly charge of life. He joined himself with us so we can have our understanding enlarged and can know the things of God.

The relationship that God wants will then lead us to intimacy. This is the restoration of the life that Adam knew before the fall or before sin entered creation. So how do we achieve intimacy with the creator of all things? The word of God says, “That while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” What does that have to do with anything? Jesus has restored the fallen world for this very purpose. That man might have reconciliation with God. So what does this have to do with intercession?

Everything! God calls the intercessor into a deeper and closer walk with himself, so he can share his heart with them and they can pray his heart into reality.

Why doesn’t God just speak it into being like he did in creation?

He desires to have fellowship with us his created ones, that’s why! He needs us and we need him. God has made us to be a spiritual man for this purpose.

There is no performance on our part that will achieve this for the intercessor. God has approved of us; he acknowledges our weakness and has made provision in Christ Jesus for all our needs. We have arrived by the grace of God. We must stop striving and performing in order to get more of his approval. This will never lead to the fullness he desires for us in Christ. The only one who can accomplish bringing us into the place of relationship, into intimacy, will be God himself. See, Eph.2

Prayer Vehicle

If we truly love God to our fullest, then it becomes easy to do those things that please him. Prayer, our communication vehicle or our conversation tool, pleases him. Prayer was not intended to be a tedious, boring, repetitious, garbled abstract of nonsense or empty words. Prayer was never designed as a chore, involving a lengthy recital of pious words.

When Holy Spirit fills our lives and is allowed to have his way in us and through us he will lead us into deep intimate times that will extend beyond our human comprehension and bring heaven right down into our midst. This type of intercession and communication Jesus knew and experienced can be ours. Ps.145, Pr.15:8b, & 29b, Is.66:1, 2.

God has willed it to be so and he will do all he can to assist us, if we will come humbly before him and seek his face. What does seeking his face mean? It means coming closer and closer to him, face-to-face, able to look into his eyes. The seeking of his face will be distinct, because of our personal differences, but the end result will be a closer meeting with God, our heavenly Father. 1Chron.16:10,11, 2Chron.7:14, Ps.27:8, 105:4, Jer.29:13.

Personal Conflict

There may be individual conflicts that cause problems for us with this intimacy and communication. How we perceive ourselves will greatly affect our time spent with him.

God ‘s word says,“ That we are in Christ, we are forgiven, that we belong to him and are called his children …” This is God’s truth to us, written for us to have faith in and as a reminder of what he has done on our account. Then why are we so distracted from arriving at this place?

What are the hindrances? Proverbs says “as a man thinks, so is he…”

A very large part comes from our unbelief. We are distracted by not believing in the provisions of God and assume that there are other special requirements we must fulfill in order to have right standing with him. This is a lie that comes from Satan to weaken and destroy our faith. Sometimes we find it easy to believe and accept the thought that we are too unworthy and have no right to stand before God. We think we need some sort of formal ritual or some mind and body whipping. If the above mentioned is prevalent in our thinking, then we are not believing the truth that God has given to us. We also do not trust Holy Spirit to bring us into the place of prayer that has been prepared for us. If we do not trust, have faith in what God has given us, then we will not have a continuance of release in prayer/intercession, or the experience of intimacy that he offers us. Rom.8:30

This does not mean that every prayer time will be perfect or a tremendous experience of grandeur either. What we need to comprehend is, God has accepted us, we are in the beloved, and we are friendsof the most high God. We can expect him to touch us. Prayer is meant to be our involvement with God, through petitions, desires, expressing our needs or the needs of others. Prayer can be an expression of our love, expectations and praise. We want God’s will released from heaven as we pray. This release will set captives free, give sight to the blind, open the ears of the deaf and so on, the mandate of Jesus, the Fathers will being done.

Understanding

There remains some need for discipline on our part. We are not to enter this relationship with fleshly attitudes.

There is the need for us to be able to overcome the fleshly weaknesses and find greater response from our spirit being touched by Holy Spirit. What we do with our mind is to surrender it to the Holy Spirit, listen to him so he can fill us with faith.

We also discipline our minds by reading, meditating on and praying the word of God. We must not lean on our own understanding as Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us.

Why not? Because we cannot trust what we think we know, we must trust what Holy Spirit expresses to us, as he brings us truth from God. Mind renewal is a process, the more of God’s truth that exists; the easier it is to think clearly. Purer and purer thought processing takes precedent. We are to think in the Spirit and with the mind.

Action

Prayer and intercession should be able to happen anywhere and at any time. It is the action of making ourselves available to hear from God, regardless of situations or circumstances.

If we only pray when trouble arises or the circumstances become too great for us, then prayer has become an introspective selfish tool and our prayer life is one-sided.

Prayer is not a feeling, not an emotion, not an attribute of our five senses. We may feel something or we may experience great emotion during times of prayer. Even our senses might be stirred during deeper times of prayer. Just because these things happen or don’t happen, does not mean God hasn’t touched us. We enter into prayer by faith, which is neither, an emotion, feeling or sense. The release of faith must accompany our prayer but that faith and release comes from God. Faith may come through the written word of God, or it may come by spiritual revelation. Faith may come by a word of knowledge spoken or whispered into our ear by Holy Spirit. Faith may also come through the gift of tongues working in your life or from someone else.

Our faith to believe in salvation came from who?

Holy Spirit working in our heart and spirit.

Our faith to believe does not come from some conjured up action on our part, it comes by way of Holy Spirit lifting our thoughts and spirits and enlarging the picture so we see more clearly.

Sometimes Holy Spirit encourages us to use the gift of tongues along with our own understanding. When the gift of tongues is released in us it elevates and edifies our spirit, bringing us into a place of faith. Faith needs to arise so we can discern what is taking place as we pray and intercede.

So let us be encouraged to ask God to enlarge our faith, so we can watch and experience what God can and will do through us in our prayers/intercession for His glory.

(Capsule from Chart)

The soul in its most refined form represents who we are. Our person / personality that makes up all our unique individuality. The soul's outside / inside influence is what develops our unregenerate man's character.

Before salvation we were controlled by a soulish life (will) in one of two forms. Either soul controlling mind / body through the emotions or mind controlling body / soul via intellect or reason. The spirit is pushed down by mind and soul activities and in some cases extrememly wounded. These two systems within us are quite inter-changable due to many factors; tradition / culture / freedom in life or a deprived life from outside influences / restrictions / excesses etc.The spirit can rise and fall during these many influences.

Holy Spirit comes to us and brings a message of conviction and appeals to our heart to make a change in our living and turn toward God and away from the condemned world system under the influence of Satan. We then make a choice to accept or reject the things of God with our mind, which in some cases is extremely fearful.

With acceptance comes a change in our hearts first, we receive a New Heart and our soul (person/will) rejoices in God. But our mind needs to go through a renewing process and as our spirit which has been subdued is given New life, there enters a warfare that we were unaware of within us.

The soul / world influences can still have a strong hold upon us and the renewal process will take on different aspects determined by multitudes of factors within each of our lives. The unique thing within all of us as humans is the inner knowledge of right and wrong, regardless of nationality / culture / tradition because of God given DNA. This is the conscience at work within all mankind.

Our personality when Holy Spirit influenced results in our soul / person / character becoming more Christ like as our New Heart and spirit take their proper God designed place.

The intellectual mind will always struggle with intuition believing it can not be trusted.

(See article 6, for more explanation)

Questions:

1) Who initiated relationship? You or God?

2) How much of our performance gets us closer to God?

3) Name other hindrances to prayer/intercession?

4) Intimacy with God. What does this look like? Is it exclusive?

5) Why can prayer happen anytime, anywhere?

6) Do you believe because your mind says to believe or because your heart knows to believe?

__________________________________________________________________

QUERY (Pages from The Handbook for Article 4)

PRAYER IS RELATIONSHIP

1)Reminder (Relationship with father, Son and Holy Spirit) we understand the Father, Jesus but do we understand Holy Spirit? His relationship with our spirit?

Relationship is really the key component. God desires relationship. He has initiated this idea and has responded by including his Spirit, mingled together with ours. We cannot enter this relationship with our minds. God is spirit and when we try to come to him with our minds, our minds will always fight us. Our spirit must be in line with his and we know that only happens after we come to know Jesus and Holy Spirit has entered our New Heart. Pg. 1

Minds tendency is to be influenced by the soul, feelings and emotions, attitudes, outside of the body, surroundings, and atmosphere.

What do I mean by, “our minds will fight us?” This simply means that the mind is too finite to grasp the things of God. Because God is eternal and lives and moves and has his being in the spirit realm as well as the natural realm, how could we ever comprehend him? The only solution was for God to help us and he has by way of Holy Spirit coming into our lives and engaging with our human spirit. He joined himself with us so we can have our understanding enlarged and can know the things of God. Pg.1 H.S. is a power regulator.

3) Intimate: Do you believe this? This will look as different as your intimacy with your family vs. your friends vs. you and your wife.

4) Performance = Actions we decide or think we have to do to please God.

I experienced renewal in 1994, in my spirit man… but my flesh man was still very active.

The seeking of his face will be distinct, because of our personal differences, but the end result will be a closer meeting with God, our heavenly Father. Pg. 2

7) Men and women are different, so our intimacy will differ. Different levels, as with mother, daughter, father, son, and also cultural differences. Good to remember when ministering in other countries.

10) The Process: Do not beat yourself up, let God be God, His mercy endures forever. There are problems here for the people who use intellect only. Difficult to pray if you cannot think with the mind and the spirit.

1Cor.2:11, Job 32:8, Mark 2:8

Understanding

There remains some need for discipline on our part. We are not to enter this relationship with fleshly attitudes. There is the need for us to be able to overcome the fleshly weaknesses and find greater response from our spirit being touched by Holy Spirit. What we do with our mind is to surrender it to the Holy Spirit, listen to him so he can fill us with faith. We also discipline our minds by reading, meditating on and praying the word of God. We must not lean on our own understanding as Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us.

Why not? Because we cannot trust what we think we know, we must trust what Holy Spirit expresses to us, as he brings us truth from God. Mind renewal is a process, the more of God’s truth that exists; the easier it is to think clearly. Purer and purer thought processing takes precedent. We are to think in the Spirit and with the mind.

This transpires because of our discipline, thinking like soldiers during warfare regardless of the situation or circumstance. Acts 16:25

Prayer and intercession should be able to happen anywhere and at any time. It is the action of making ourselves available to hear from God, regardless of situations or circumstances.

Intercession is not about you! It is always about others.

What do you do when your soul and body say,”I don’t want to pray right now, I don’t feel like it, I’m sick?”

Your spirit needs to rise up and be above the body, on top of soulish attitudes and arguments that will arise and also bringing the will into alignment.

How? Training/learning/discernment/understanding and knowledge.

Then activation.

Who Trains us?

Prayer is not a feeling, not an emotion, not an attribute of our five senses. We may feel something or we may experience great emotion during times of prayer. Even our senses might be stirred during deeper times of prayer. Just because these things happen or don’t happen, does not mean God hasn’t touched us. We enter into prayer by faith, which is neither, an emotion, feeling or sense. The release of faith must accompany our prayer but that faith and release comes from God. Faith may come through the written word of God, or it may come by spiritual revelation. Faith may come by a word of knowledge spoken our whispered into our ear by Holy Spirit. Faith may also come through the gift of tongues working in your life or from someone else. Pg. 2

11) Prayer by faith, not feelings, emotions, senses. If we sit around waiting for a tickle we will miss what is going on in the spirit. Must learn how to rely on your spirit and how this process works within you.

Sometimes Holy Spirit encourages us to use the gift of tongues along with our own understanding. When the gift of tongues is released in us it elevates and edifies our spirit, bringing us into a place of faith. Faith needs to arise so we can discern what is taking place as we pray and intercede. Pg. 3

12) Tongues:

Tongues are a result of Holy Spirit within you, but they are subject to you just as spirit of prophecy is subject to the prophet. 1Cor.14:32

We can turn it on or off. vs:13> pray for interpretation

1Cor.14:2> his spirit (mans) is talking (How does our spirit know to do this?)

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